Retouching (or... where to stop?)

Is a nose a nose? Or full cheeks full cheeks? Are blemishes blemishes? What to leave untouched in the retouching process and what to 'fix'?

I believe there is a difference between the image taken at 1/200th of a second and the lively person standing in front of the camera when the moment is frozen - a certain angle may show a cheek a little more full than anyone would ever actually see on the you in 'real life'; the nose may appear bigger, smaller, etc. etc. than any person would perceive it when being around you

So, where does this leave the retouching of your image?

I believe retouching should:

Remove / clean / fix blemishes, marks etc. that are temporary; acne, a small wound, red nose due to a cold, etc. In other words, all stuff on the face that is expected to be there for only a period of time is cleaned during retouch

Reduce excessive shadows and color casts caused by artificial effects (i.e. the lights in the studio, color casts from shirts and the like)

Reduce redness in skin caused by the strong studio light - thinner skin types tend to show the blood veins more clearly under the strong light and is not a part of how people look under normal light conditions

Reduce (but not remove) the shadows in the life lines (wrinkles) caused by the studio light and camera sharpness

Clean crazy hair that's all over the face - even though I do my very best to remove stray hair and bangs before hitting the button, some feisty hair may come back and this gets removed too during my retouch

Reduce features that look unnatural at the given angle - again, I do all I can to make sure this doesn't happen before I shoot, but sometimes an impromptu smile can cause a cheek to stand out more than anyone would ever see or the light may hit your nose making it look in a way that no-one would've seen on the 'live you'

But first and foremost I believe that no images should look retouched - images that looks retouched are beauty shots to me and not a real representation of you - and this is what I believe a headshot should be

Click on the image to see a larger version - before retouching is the top image ;-)